Movie review: Charlie St. Cloud’ is on sentimental overdrive

Friday

Zac Efron sees and talks to dead people in “Charlie St. Cloud,” but don’t go in expecting any late-in-the-game Shyamalan-like twists to legitimize its grief-laden machinations.

Zac Efron sees and talks to dead people in “Charlie St. Cloud,” but don’t go in expecting any late-in-the-game Shyamalan-like twists to legitimize its grief-laden machinations.

Don’t bring your hankies, either, because as hard as “Charlie” tries to tug at your heartstrings, your eyes remain bone dry. Unless, maybe, they begin to well from all the unintentional laughter elicited by a saccharine-heavy screenplay that deals in clunker lines like: “Why did God give you a second chance?” and “Go live your life. It’s a gift.”

Add in a healthy dose of E.E. Cummings’ poetry and St. Jude medallions (patron of lost causes), and you’ve got a recipe for sentimental overkill.

Perhaps its source material, Ben Sherwood’s novel “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud,” packs a bigger emotional wallop. The only wow director Burr Steers (“Igby Goes Down”) pulls off is the visually stunning sailing sequences and the postcard-perfect panoramic views of the seaside village setting.

Efron isn’t much help, either, in his second collaboration with Steers, who also directed him last year in “17 Again.” While it’s admirable that Efron wants to extend his chops beyond teen-theme musicals, you wish he’d hone his limited dramatic skills on his own time.

You name it; he tries it in fleshing out the title character. He cries. He rages. He swoons. He pines. He laughs. He grieves. But hardly any of it is believable.

Unless there’s a prop in his hands, a baseball or a beer bottle, Efron looks awkward, like he doesn’t know where to put his hands or how to carry himself.

At this point in his career, Efron is better suited as a wooden soldier. Ever since he rose to fame in the “High School Musical” franchise, Efron has tried to shed the squeaky-clean song-and-dance routine that made him a star. In hindsight, Efron should never have passed up reprising Kevin Bacon’s role in the reboot of “Footloose.” Singing and dancing are what he does well. Play to your strengths, Zac.

I don’t mean to knock the kid, either. I’ve been rooting for him and he was terrific in “Hairspray.” The one thing he brings to the table in “Charlie St. Cloud” is his incredible good looks. You don’t get tired of seeing him, which is a plus because he’s in every scene. You just get tired of him trying too hard to sell a performance he doesn’t have the chops to handle. He’s on maudlin overdrive and the script from writers Craig Pearce (“Moulin Rouge!) and Lewis Colick (“Beyond the Sea”) is as sappy as any film based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. (Believe it or not, Efron is in talks to star in an adaptation of Sparks’ “The Lucky One.”)

By no means is Efron the only guy missing the mark. So is Steers, who sets a mood and tone so off-key, you’re never sure if you should be laughing or crying. Even the big plot twist is a let down.

Anyway, back to “Charlie St. Dud.” In a nutshell, a truck plows into the car Efron and his little brother, Sam (newcomer Charlie Tahan), are riding in. One minute Charlie – star sailor, scholarship to Stanford – had the world by the cajones, and the next his little brother is dead.

Sam’s death fills Charlie with unimaginable grief and derails his life. The film abruptly flashes forward five years and Charlie is still in a funk. Filled with despair, he never went to college. Instead, he’s the caretaker of the local cemetery in Quincy Harbor. Not Quincy, Mass., but the Red Sox have such a prominent showing in the film, you’d think it was shot here.

In some sort of twist of metaphysics, Charlie is able to see his dead brother and meets the boy every day at sunset to throw baseballs. Seems Sam and Charlie are both in different versions of limbo. As time passes, Charlie earns a reputation as the town weirdo, a misunderstood hunk. Enter local sailing queen Tess (a one-note Amanda Crew) as the love interest who is the doorway to healing. As is Ray Liotta’s Florio Ferrente, the paramedic who saved Charlie’s life the night of the accident. Liotta, in an all-too-brief stint, classes things up. I’d say the same for Kim Basinger (Charlie’s mom) but blink and you might miss her.

While the scenes with Efron and Tahan are borderline endearing, the real scene-stealer is Augustus Prew, who plays Charlie’s only friend. Prew injects life – and intended laughs – into a movie that is otherwise dead on arrival.

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@ledger.com.

CHARLIE ST. CLOUD (PG-13 for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality.) Cast includes Zac Efron, Amanda Crew. 1.5 stars out of 4.

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